Drive

The Place Beyond the Pines

I adore Ryan Gosling.  I think his choices are shrewd and artful, and the camera loves him.  I can rattle off several of his movies that I think are truly superb, and now you can add one more to the list. In The Place Beyond the Pines, Gosling gives a stirring performance that permeates quietly before a shocking culmination.

The movie begins with an introduction to Luke Glanton (Gosling, Gangster Squad), a motorcycle stunt rider who performs in a traveling carnival.  Director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) immediately drew the audience in with a taut opening sequence, as Luke performs a dangerous three-man stunt in a steel cage without batting an eyelash.  We see immediately that he is a thrilling character, dangerous and effortlessly cool.  I was reminded of Gosling’s turn in Drive, which also began with a riveting introduction to the main character in his element.  Before he leaves for his next city, he is visited by Romina (Eva Mendes, The Other Guys), an old flame.  Ro wears a pained expression, and their interaction is cautious and awkward as he drives her home.  He tells Ro that he will be leaving town soon, but he later stops by spontaneously one last time before hitting the road.  Ro isn’t home, but her mother answers the door holding an infant, which turns out to be his son Jason.

Luke is upset that Ro didn’t tell him about his son, although he hadn’t kept in contact with her since his last visit.  He immediately feels a sense of responsibility and decides to stick around town, quitting the carnival.  He shifts gears and wants to be a provider, though he is totally unequipped and unprepared for fatherhood.  The fact that Ro is in a relationship with a new man (Mahershala Ali, House of Cards) and surrogate father to Jason only adds to Luke’s feelings of inadequacy and emasculation.  Soon he meets Robin, a friendly swindler who easily convinces him to knock off a bank for a quick, small score.  In a brazen daytime robbery, Luke rides his motorcycle up to the bank door and surprises unsuspecting tellers in a daring heist.  He makes his exit quickly, zipping through traffic at a harrowing clip to rendezvous with Robin.  These moments when Gosling (or his stunt double) weaved his way through traffic and the pine trees of the forest on his motorcycle were amazing.

Eventually Luke crosses paths with Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook) an ambitious Schenectady cop who is privy to larger corruption within the department.  The movie shifts at the midway point, and we begin to see life through Avery’s eyes.  Despite the varied perspectives, the film never felt unfocused.  As we examine the aftermath of their interaction, a parallel storyline emerges, as Luke’s fate and that of his infant son become inextricably tied to Avery Cross, who also has a baby boy.  As the movie unfolds, a haunting context emerges, giving more resonance to Gosling’s character, even when he is not on screen.

From Blue Valentine to Drive, Gosling always strikes the right note and draws the viewer in to his characters’ emotions.  His portrayal was authentic, and I never doubted the performance.  There was a fateful air of sadness that hung over the movie, and Luke was a sympathetic character despite his criminal leanings.  Luke’s energy was palpable, and Gosling was magnetic in every scene.  The Place Beyond the Pines was a poignant, electrifying movie that explored the themes of fatherhood and manhood in a stirring and powerful way.  The camera loves Ryan Gosling, and you will too. Grade: A.

This Is 40

During the last few years, Judd Apatow has emerged on the comedic forefront with some very memorable movies.  Before his recent popularity, he began his career writing/directing several episodes of NBC’s critically acclaimed Freaks and Geeks.  His big screen directorial debut came with The 40 year Old Virgin, which I thought was hilarious.  Apatow kept the laughs going with Knocked Up, and This is 40 is the aptly billed “sort-of sequel” to that movie.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as funny as its predecessor.

Paul Rudd (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Apatow’s wife, actress Leslie Mann (The Change-Up) reprise their limited roles from Knocked Up, returning as Pete and Debbie.  They have two adorable daughters named Sadie and Charlotte, and they have a lot for which to be thankful.  However, it seems that Pete is rather bogged down with life’s common stressors, such as the demands of his job and family.  He gets most of his “me time” in the bathroom, before his wife routinely interrupts him and beckons him back to the family.  The movie shows how 40 isn’t “old,” but it definitely comes with a different set of demands and expectations.  Both Pete and Debbie own their own businesses, and each professional endeavor highlights unique feelings of inadequacy for both of them.  Pete has a fledgling record label and featured artist, while Debbie deals with younger employees at her own boutique.

Family is the central theme of the movie, with a focus not just on Sadie and Charlotte, but on their parents as well.  Pete’s father (Albert Brooks, Drive) has repeatedly borrowed money from him for years, to the family’s detriment.  Just as Debbie begins to accept her impending 40th birthday, she finds out that she is pregnant again and makes it clear that they can’t afford to hemorrhage funds to Pops.  She also has a strained relationship with her own father (John Lithgow, The Campaign), who divorced her mother long ago and started a second family.  She feels disconnected from him, as he is a much more visible presence in his second family’s life.  In the movie’s final act, Pete and Debbie try to resolve some long-standing issues with their fathers, with mixed results.

I liked This is 40, but if you are expecting non-stop hilarity you will be disappointed.  This is not one of Apatow’s funnier movies. I think Mann and Rudd are gifted comedic actors, and I enjoyed them in movies like I Love You Man and The Change-Up.  However, This is 40 is not as funny as either of those two movies.  It was more heart-warming and sweet than funny, and I was definitely straight-faced more than once.  The movie focuses on family so much that it became endearing.  That’s fine, but it’s not funny.  Good movie, but not as “laugh out loud” funny as I thought it would be.  Grade: B.

The Ides of March

“Beware the ides of March…”  I’ve always liked the Shakespeare quote from Caesar, an ominous warning of betrayal.  It’s appropriate that the George Clooney (The American) directed Ides of March is named for the quote, as the movie is similarly characterized by the betrayal and cold ambition found in Shakespeare’s play.

Ryan Gosling (Drive), Philip Seymour Hoffman (currently in Moneyball), Marisa Tomei (The Lincoln Lawyer), and Paul Giamatti (most recently of The Hangover II) comprise a highly-acclaimed cast that is the best collection of actors I’ve seen in a while.  Clooney is Democratic governor Mike Morris, an ambitious contender for the White House, especially if he can win the Ohio primary that looms ahead.  An integral part of Morris’ campaign is his campaign manager and aide, Stephen Meyers (Gosling).  Meyers is a sharp young gun with political savvy beyond his years.  He is calculating and shrewd, and will tell you that he’s done more at his age than most of his older counterparts.  However, it is Meyers’ strong ego that leaves him susceptible to overtures from the opposition.  Morris’ opponent is a more seasoned Democrat, a representative of the status quo, while Morris (much like President Obama) has been anointed as the symbol of hope and change.   Stephen has truly bought into Morris’ image and thinks he is backing a winner.  As he tells another character, he is “drinking the kool-aid.”  The campaign is moving in the right direction until Stephen gets a call from Tom Duffy, campaign manager for Morris’ opponent.  Duffy tells Stephen that he’d like him to switch sides and that he should attach himself to a winner and look at the big picture.  Stephen ultimately declines, but let the whole thing linger on longer than it should have.  Instead of maintaining an impenetrable silence, he allowed for the possibility of uncertainty and cast Morris in a vulnerable light at a critical hour of the campaign.

While managing the campaign, Stephen crosses paths with a young volunteer named Molly (Evan Rachel Wood, True Blood) whose father happens to be the head of the Democratic National Convention.  They begin an intimate relationship that leads Stephen to discover that he and the governor share more than a similar ideology.  Meanwhile, Stephen tells Morris’ senior campaign manager Paul (Hoffman) about his exchange with Tom Duffy.  His admission is met with an impassioned diatribe on the virtue of loyalty, after which he is quickly dismissed from the campaign.  At first blush it seems that Stephen will be a victim of his own ego, but he still has an ace up his sleeve with Molly – who is carrying a secret that could derail the entire campaign.  It’s ironic that while Paul was reminding Stephen of the importance of loyalty, he had no idea that Stephen had been displaying great loyalty to the governor by cleaning his dirty laundry even while his own position within the campaign grew more and more tenuous.

After Stephen is fired he behaves vengefully and emotionally, almost validating the overture.  But you don’t get to where Stephen has gotten without having a fighter’s mentality.  He goes into survival mode and begins to play the game from within, angling to revive his role in the campaign and to leverage what info he has against the man he once believed in.

Ides of March was a pretty good political drama.  I’ve seen better, but it was a solid movie and an impressive directorial effort from Clooney.  I really feel that he captured the idealistic buzz that hums in a Democratic campaign, the enthusiasm and liberalism.  I chuckled at the Shepard Fairey-inspired prints modeled after Obama’s iconic ‘Hope’ poster, but otherwise I thought the campaign depiction was realistic.  Ryan Gosling continues to prove that he’s one of the best young actors around.  He is earnest and real in everything I’ve ever seen him in, and I am always endeared to his characters, whether he’s a criminal in Drive, a drug addict in Half Nelson, or a lovesick suitor in The Notebook.  Clooney was effective as the duplicitous Morris and of course it’s no difficult task for him to be the charming candidate.  The supporting cast was very good, and I should mention that Jeffrey Wright (Source Code, Cadillac Records) also made an appearance.  Another great actor in a pretty good movie.  I didn’t like the very last scene of the movie, but I enjoyed it overall. 8 out 10.